


Pink Sparkly Unicorns and Terrible Tea, or How To Survive A Roommate Situation

by galaxysoup



Category: Eureka
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Yuletide 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo's homeless. Carter has hideous taste in linens. Somehow there is no actual violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Sparkly Unicorns and Terrible Tea, or How To Survive A Roommate Situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SadieFlood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieFlood/gifts).



> Spoilers for Eureka season four, particularly _The Story of O2_. Rampant abuse of pop culture.

You might not think a scary-science-fueled rocket would cause a lot of damage when it hits a house at Mach Whatever, but boy howdy, it _really_ does. Jo’s house is pretty much rubble. The mailbox is okay, and weirdly the porch is basically unharmed, but there really isn’t much to say about the rest of the house except that it mostly fell into the basement instead of taking out the yard, and if Jo wants to transplant her bushes to her new place she’ll probably be able to.

Carter hasn’t tried saying that yet. He’s pretty sure it wouldn’t go over well.

They stand for a moment and stare at the wreck. Carter sneaks a sideways look at Jo, ready to convince her that throwing Larry in jail for a few days for reckless endangerment will be way more satisfying in the long run than ripping off his arms, but Jo’s expression is... not angry. Actually, she looks a lot like Zoe when she’s about to -

Cry.

 _Ohgod._

“Jo - “ he starts, waffling between _I’m sure it looks worse than it actually is,_ and _If I try to give you a hug right now will you dislocate my shoulder?_ Zoe always wants a hug. Lexie and Abby both usually wanted tea.

Carter’s not sure he’s going to be able to produce tea. Jo’s kitchen is probably best termed ‘inaccessible’ right now.

“Shouldn’t you be putting up caution tape?” Jo says, voice wobbling.

“I - yes.” Of course - Jo would want to be alone. He can do that, for the moment anyway. “I’ll just - I’ll be over there.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Living with Carter is... interesting, in a generally good way. Jo’s used to making herself feel at home in all kinds of unique situations, so the awkwardness passes pretty fast, although she never quite gets over missing her own house and her own things. After spending so much time in the rigid parameters of the military it was kind of fun to experiment a little, and she misses her pretty blue comforter and the yellow paint in her hallway and the ridiculous duck magnets on her refrigerator (she was surprised to see them still there in this alternate timeline - they were a present from Zane, originally. She wonders sometimes who they could have come from, if not him). Carter’s house is nice and SARAH has been kind of disturbingly welcoming, but it’s still not _her_ home.

It’s silly to be upset about a house and a few possessions, though, so she decides not to do it.

Three days into their cohabitation, Carter shows up with a set of horrifically floral flannel sheets, a novelty bath towel branded with one of the reality TV shows she watches on the sly, and a proud expression that distinctly reminds her of a puppy with a tennis ball in his mouth.

“I got these for you,” he says, expression faltering slightly in the face of her stunned silence. “You had a lot of flowers planted around your house, and flannel’s nice, so I thought, you know... and then they had the towels too...” he blinks and shifts uncomfortably. “I could see if they have camo ones instead?”

Jo starts to laugh.

“Pink camo bathrobe?” he offers, grin broadening. “With fluffy slippers? You strike me as a stealth bunny sort of girl.”

“I will hurt you,” Jo threatens, still laughing. “Thank you for the thought but I think I’ll do my own shopping from now on!”

“That’s what Zoe always says,” Carter sighs.

She keeps the sheets - they’re so hideous they’re almost beautiful - and it turns out the towel is actually a decent size and pretty absorbent, so she keeps that too, although as revenge she still buys Carter a poster of a glittery pink unicorn wreathed in eye-searing rainbows and sticks it to his bedroom door with something permanent and scientific cooked up by the guys in Level Three.

He retaliates with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber.

“I am not sure this is proper behavior for adults,” SARAH worries after Jo superglues dancing hamster bobbleheads to the hood of Carter’s jeep. “However, your seratonin levels _have_ improved, so I will continue to monitor the situation until further data presents itself.”

Jo and Carter share indulgent smirks over their coffee mugs ( _I Heart Napalm_ for Jo, _Team Edward_ for Carter).

“I’m sorry, SARAH, it’s a human thing,” Carter says. “We’re bonding.”

“Oh, I’ve read about that on the internet,” SARAH says brightly. “I could find you some instructional websites, if you’d like.”

Carter and Jo both choke on their coffee.

* * * * * * * * * *

Carter likes looking after people. Sure, it’s technically his job, but that’s more about protection than comfort. As fun as bickering is - and he does tend to gravitate towards women who can verbally kick his ass (physically, too, in Jo’s case) - he really likes the quiet companionable parts of watching out for someone best.

Mostly it’s just nice to have someone else in the house again.

“It’s sort of like when Aunt Lexie was here, only instead of cats Jo’s got like thirteen varieties of nightsticks,” he explains to Zoe over the phone. He flops down on the couch and winds up landing on something hard and painful. “Ow! They get underfoot, they show up where they’re not supposed to - “

“And I hear they shed,” Zoe says drily.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Carter says absently, digging the painful thing out from between the couch cushions. He stares at it, completely nonplussed. “Oh my God, I just sat on _nunchucks_. She has got to be punking me.”

Zoe laughs so hard she drops the phone. “I’m glad to hear you two are getting along so well,” she says when she’s gotten her breath back.

“We are, actually. We’ve got a tacky gift-giving contest going at the moment, although I think she might have beaten me with the Disney Princesses blanket.”

“Pink sparkly feather boa in my closet, do it!” Zoe gasps.

By the time he’s found the feather boa in Zoe’s physics-defying closet and draped it fetchingly across Jo’s headboard it’s nearly time for Jo to be back from GD. SARAH chirps a greeting - a few decibels louder than normal, he’ll have to thank her later - and Carter manages to get out of Jo’s room and down the stairs just in time.

“Zoe says hi,” he says, casual and not even a little breathless.

Jo’s scream of outrage when she finds he’s also used Zoe’s purple sparkly nail polish to decorate her knife collection is nothing short of poetry.

* * * * * * * * * *

Living with someone is just as often about not saying things as it is about talking. Carter and Jo bicker just as much as they ever have, and occasionally they even indulge in intelligent debates (Non-Dairy Creamer: Animal, Vegetable, or Plastic? Cavemen Versus Astronauts: Who Would Fargo Piss Off Faster?), but the important things take place in silence as often as not.

Carter never brings up the ring around Jo’s neck unless she does it first, and he never asks if she wears so much black because it looks professional or if it’s because she doesn’t know what to do without a uniform. Jo never mentions the Zoe Notebook next to the phone ( _fav. color still purple. 10th bday ballet not baseball. avocados = funny? injoke???_ ) even though she’s pretty sure he knows she’s seen it.

Jo fights for unscented dryer sheets and raises holy hell over the subject of appropriate salad dressing but on the bad days, the days when she and Carter look around and don’t recognize the world they’re in and Jo misses Zane so fiercely it’s hard to breathe, the bickering just seems petty. There’s a time to push and squabble, and there’s a time to sit pressed up against each other on the sofa and just not talk.

Besides, Carter is weirdly obsessed with making her tea when he thinks she’s upset. It tastes like woodchips and dirt but she goes ahead and drinks it anyway. Carter likes fussing over the teapot and the little metal strainer thing but he’d never make it for himself, and Jo...

Okay, sometimes it’s nice to have someone fuss and hover over her, and Carter’s really good at that. It seems to make him happier, too, so Jo drinks tea she doesn’t like and hides her weapons in surprising places, and Carter buys boring dryer sheets and tacky novelty gifts and somehow it works for them.

SARAH has got to stop ordering them helpful DVDs, though.

* * * * * * * * * *

“How’s the house search coming along?” Grace asks.

“There’s nothing available, so I think I’m going to have to build one,” Jo says. She’s kind of looking forward to it, actually.

“Oh, Jo, I’m sorry,” Grace says sympathetically. “Are you still staying with Jack? I didn’t mention it before because I thought you’d be able to find a new place pretty quickly, but there’s a little apartment over our garage. It needs some work before it would be comfortable, but you’re more than welcome to it. We could decorate it for you!”

Jo smiles a little to herself. “Thank you, Grace, but I think I’ll stay where I am for right now.”

It might not be _home_ home, but at least it's entertaining.


End file.
